Guest Review - The Dark Knight Rises

Amateur Reviews are quite aware of the subjective nature of film, so when a friend of the blog came to us asking to review TDKR, it seemed like a great opportunity to showcase another opinion besides our own! Harriet's review analyses the villains in great detail, and although wasn't as blown away with the film as our official review, raises some interesting points of view. As ever, a quick spolier alert, other than that - enjoy this guest review and feel free to comment!

I recently went to see the new Batman film, ‘The Dark Knight
Rises’ after devoting two evenings to watching its predecessors; ‘Batman
Begins’ and ‘The Dark Knight’. Needless to say, judging from the quality of the
previous two films, I was extremely looking forward to watching the final
instalment of this highly entertaining, and beautifully written trilogy.

I sat
in the cinema, and felt the rustle of excitement as the opening screens played
forward and the lights dimmed, however by the time the end credits had rolled
and the cinema was light again, I didn’t feel the rush of adrenaline and wonder
that I had felt after the end credits had rolled for Nolan’s previous Batman
films. I would like to point out now, that this film is by no means a flop, I
found the acting by the cast was stellar and it was thoroughly entertaining,
not to mention my pleasure at seeing so much British talent in one film. But,
for me it lacked what I usually attribute to Nolan’s films; the ability to make
the highly unlikely a worrying possibility.

What I liked about Nolan’s Batman
was he was realistic; he wasn’t bit by a nonexistent spider, or genetically
engineered in some post-war science experiment. He was trained by a secret
organisation, which is a little farfetched but at least plausible in some
respects. What’s more, Bruce Wayne has the ability to be Batman, and Nolan
doesn’t shy away from the fact that, you can’t just wake up one day and be a
superhero, you need resources. In short, you need to be a billionaire, which
Bruce Wayne is. This time round however, we see the fall of our hero, he is
crippled, he is bankrupt and he is lonely. Who wants to spend three hours,
watching a lonely, poor crippled man, after watching the rich, powerful,
fearless superhero of films past? I know it’s a message that ‘all good things
come to an end’, but still, we want action, excitement and a bit of envy that
he can live out his dream, whilst we sit here wasting our money on popcorn.

On
another note, we are introduced to the new villain ‘Bane’, who is played
extremely well by Tom Hardy. What I enjoyed about Bane was his eloquence,
eloquence which was released to Gotham City through a mask which mirrored that
of a dog’s mussel and helped to reinforce the idea of Bane as a wolf like
creature. It was like seeing Scar, if he was human, a desperately evil person
with no understanding of pain and a target of only destruction and death. I
enjoyed Bane as a villain, but not as much as Heath Ledger’s ‘Joker’.Although Bane was articulate, which served to
make his speeches ever more terrifying, it was the Joker’s plausibility which
made him so creepy; his dishevelled appearance and face paint, the scars, the
idea that he festered and grew in Gotham, like mould in a forgotten fridge.
Whilst Bane, controlled those around him through explosions, and the threat of
a bomb, the Joker gained control through manipulation of those weakest in
society, through clever schemes and infiltration of society’s highest orders.
It was this indifference to humanity that augmented the Joker’s psychosis, the
line “some men just want to watch the world burn”, summed up entirely what
drove the Joker to murder and maim those around him, plus the idea that he
placed himself outside of what society valued most-money- coupled with Ledger’s
brilliant performance, made the character even more terrifying and chilling.

The villain in this film is less substantial. We never really see him without
his mask, so you never see the injuries which have served to make him a legend,
which also make him less relatable. What’s more we never know his back story,
how he came to Gotham, how he was in prison and in the end, we see him cry,
which, whilst perhaps giving his character depth, completely breaks the
illusion of him being acold and callous
master criminal with little care for anyone or anything.

You are probably
wondering why I have devoted almost 3/4 of this review to the villain and not
to the lead, and this is because we rarely see the lead. He pops up now and
then to have a fight, be angry, and be ultimately destroyed and then placed in
a prison by Bane from which there is ‘no escape’ , where he builds himself up
to go back for his final fight for Gotham. It was all very predictable, with a
predictable twist in the end and the film spends most of its time focusing on
Bane, Wayne Enterprises and the Police officers.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the
film, there was some brilliant performances from all of the cast, and some
hugely emotional scenes. There was lots of heart-stopping action and brilliant
dialogue. However, I felt as the final instalment to what has been largely, a
brilliant trilogy it was lacking that emotional element which is supposed to
drive home to the audience that this is the end. There was not enough of a
relationship built up between the antagonist and the protagonist for the rise
of the Dark Knight to be seen as the final showdown between good and evil. The
loose ends were tied up, but in a half hearted way, and there was no big
tragedy that befell any of the main roles, or that let you feel like it was
done, over, finished caput. It was a well made movie, that was not awarded the
huge confrontation or destruction that is awarded a final instalment, instead
it was awarded mystery, with the film feeling as though it was setting itself
up for new plot lines and new stories to appear.

All in all, I was blown away
by the ultimate production level and the cast of the film, but not by the
plotline itself, which I felt lacked depth, intricacy and realism.

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